A herd of Canadians is moving to Alaska, but none of them have passports or visas—and they are literally a herd. The Canadian government has transferred 44 wood bison from Elk Island National Park to the State of Alaska.
The move is the latest of four, with previous ‘migrations’ taking place in 2008, 2022 and 2024, as part of a long-term plan for recovery of the species and its return to its original habitats. Others have been returned to indigenous nations, other national parks in Canada and elsewhere in North America.
Wood bison, also called mountain bison, and plains bison are the two subspecies of North American bison, and groups of both live in the Elk Island reserve. From the late 1920s on, wood bison were believed extinct because of interbreeding with plains bison in Wood Buffalo National Park, but in 1957 a pure herd was found in an isolated area of the park.
Wood bison are generally larger than plains bison, and are better able to store fat for the winter, as well as having wooly hair that collects show rather than melting, providing extra insulation.
Image By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Wood bison in the snow
